Vitens CEO: we have to deal with drinking water differently in the Netherlands

The water systems in the Netherlands are under pressure and the Dutch will therefore have to deal with drinking water differently. Also politically. CEO Jelle Hannema of drinking water supplier Vitens announced this on Sunday on the television program WNL op Zondag. According to him, in some areas companies already have to be turned away if they want a connection to the water network.

Hannema believes that politics in particular has to chip in. That's where decisions need to be made, he said. Water companies such as Vitens are dependent on permits if they want to expand their capacities, for example. These are issued by the provinces, which have to deal with various interests such as nature, agriculture and housing construction. However, if the provinces issue a permit that allows the water companies to extract more water, the groundwater level drops, which does not benefit agriculture and nature.

The Vitens CEO therefore appeals to politicians to take the drinking water suppliers' duty of care seriously, especially in the short term. In the long term, Vitens is already investing in making the drinking water system more sustainable. But that will take several decades. "So in the short term, we have to accept that there are suboptimal situations. This means that the drinking water supply comes at the expense of other interests," claimed Hannema.

Suboptimal situations refer to low groundwater levels, for example. This is because if a permit is granted that allows drinking water companies to extract water for households and businesses, this leads to a drop in the groundwater level. As a result, there is less water left for nature and agriculture, Business Insider Nederland reports.

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Hannema says it is up to politicians to weigh up these interests, even if short-term solutions have to be found quickly now. "Then you can just stay out of the danger zone, but it remains precarious," he said.

The CEO was responding to a publication by The Telegraph earlier this week, among other things. Based on an analysis, the newspaper stated that the construction of 300,000 houses could be at risk because they cannot be connected to the water supply. Minister Mark Harbers (Infrastructure and Water Management) said that the problems in Groningen, Achterhoek, West Brabant and Zuid-Holland were already "really depressing".